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TY - JOUR AU - Hedges, S. Blair AU - Parker, Patrick H. AU - Sibley, Charles G. AU - Kumar, Sudhir PY - 1996 DA - 1996/05/01 TI - Continental breakup and the ordinal diversification of birds and mammals JO - Nature SP - 226 EP - 229 VL - 381 IS - 6579 AB - THE classical hypothesis for the diversification of birds and mammals proposes that most of the orders diverged rapidly in adaptive radiations after the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) extinction event 65 million years ago1–3. Evidence is provided by the near-absence of fossils representing modern orders before the K/T boundary4,5. However, fossil-based estimates of divergence time are known to be conservative because of sampling biases6, and some molecular/time estimates point to earlier divergences among orders7–10. In an attempt to resolve this controversy, we have estimated times of divergence among avian and mammalian orders with a comprehensive set of genes that exhibit a constant rate of substitution. Here we report molecular estimates of divergence times that average about 50–90% earlier than those predicted by the classical hypothesis, and show that the timing of these divergences coincides with the Mesozoic fragmentation of emergent land areas. This suggests that continental breakup may have been an important mechanism in the ordinal diversification of birds and mammals. SN - 1476-4687 UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/381226a0 DO - 10.1038/381226a0 ID - Hedges1996 ER -